President Biden announced pardons for members of his family in the last minutes of his presidency, a shocking development as President-elect Trump’s inauguration is already underway.
The blanket pardons were granted to his brother, James Biden; Sara Jones Biden, his sister-in-law; his sister, Valerie Biden Owens; John T. Owens, his brother-in-law; and Francis Biden, Biden’s other brother.
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” Biden said in a statement. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”
Biden said the pardons do not acknowledge any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be viewed as an admission of guilt. They cover any nonviolent offenses from Jan. 1, 2014, to Sunday.
The pardon for the Biden family members came after a number testified before the House Oversight Committee as it investigated both President Biden and son Hunter Biden in a probe they said was dedicated to influence peddling.
While President Biden pardoned Hunter Biden in December, he had not yet done so for other family members, risking continued congressional oversight.
Last week, House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) had called on the incoming attorney general to bring contempt of Congress charges against James Biden, accusing him of lying to the panel during a deposition.
“Though President Biden’s saccharine (and wholly ironic) rantings of political persecution and weaponized prosecution of Hunter Biden are specious, they are inapplicable to the non-prosecution of his brother, James Biden, who has lied to the United States Congress and has faced no accountability to date,” Comer wrote in a letter last week in a letter to Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Justice.
“I write to encourage the Department under your leadership to hold James Biden accountable for lying to Congress to protect his brother, the soon-to-be-former President Biden. No one should be above the law, regardless of his last name.”